Making Stuff: Education and Outreach

Making Stuff Activity Guide

The Making Stuff Activity Guide contains four materials science activities that can be used in afterschool or out-of-school programs, or other settings. The hour-long activities are geared toward children ages 10 to 12, but families and adults alike can enjoy them. The materials are inexpensive and readily available at grocery, hardware, home supply, and electronics stores.
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Stronger Activity Clip (MP4)
Ride along with David Pogue in a demolition derby to investigate the strength and toughness of steel car bodies.

Smaller Activity Clip (MP4)
Zoom in on a miniature magnet-powered robot and learn how materials scientists are using materials to replace machines in the quest to build micro-robots that could one day travel inside the body to deliver medicine or perform surgery.

Cleaner Activity Clip (MP4)
Materials scientists are designing new kinds of batteries that could power the next generation of electric vehicles, including an electric motorcycle that can accelerate to 60 mph in less than one second.

Smarter Activity Clip (MP4)
David Pogue investigates smart materials that can respond and change, including a mixture of cornstarch and water that exhibits some very strange properties.

Making Stuff Toolkit

With these materials, you can create
opportunities for middle and high school youth, families, educators, and
engineers and scientists to access a range of engaging educational activities
that explore materials science, so that "viewers" become active "doers" in the
process of science and engineering.

Note: you can download files in this document by right-clicking a link and choosing "Save Target As..." or "Save Link as..." from the menu. (Use ctrl-click on the Mac)

About Making Stuff (PDF)

Working with partners in museums, schools, universities, labs, and businesses across the country, the national outreach campaign will coalesce with a month of Making Stuff events. Learn about the outreach campaign and how to get started.
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Making Stuff Resources

These demonstrations, hands-on activities, video clips, and presentations will support your outreach efforts to engage, educate, and entertain all ages.

Reproducibles (3 PDFs)

Toolkit Resources

Making Stuff Events and Activities Guidelines (PDF)

Use these ideas along with other Making Stuff Resources to help get your materials science events and activities off the ground.
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Making Stuff Demonstrations

Four short demonstrations featuring the cutting edge technology and topics presented in the series, these demos will showcase materials science from the research lab right into your home.

Stronger (PDF)

The audience participates to test and compare the tensile strength and elasticity of Kevlar, Nylon, and cotton thread by lifting weighted buckets with wooden dowels. Visitors learn that materials can be strong in different ways and that materials scientists test the strength of materials by stressing them to their breaking point.
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Stronger Demo Clip (MP4)
David Pogue visits DuPont™, where Kevlar® was invented, to test the strength of this amazing bullet-proof material and find out how it works.

Additional Resources for Stronger:

Smaller (PDF)

Visitors use Styrofoam block and pipe cleaners to demonstrate the challenge of working on the nanoscale to produce smaller but more powerful computing and electronic devices. Visitors learn how difficult it is to work on the small scale and that materials scientists are developing extremely small, thin wires, called nanowires, that may help make computers and electronics even smaller in the future.
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Smaller Demo Clip (MP4)
Make a pizza with a materials scientist at IBM to see how nanowires could be used to shrink transistors and power even smaller, yet more powerful, computers.

Cleaner (PDF)

Visitors learn about bioplastic, a material made of plant or animal matter that is cleaner because it breaks down more easily in the environment than petroleum-based synthetic plastics. Visitors learn how to make and explore a simple bioplastic by curdling milk with vinegar in a process similar to cheese making.
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Cleaner Demo Clip (MP4)
Materials scientists at Ford are replacing petroleum-based plastics in cars with cleaner bioplastics, materials made from plant or animal products that can biodegrade in the environment.

Additional Resources for Cleaner:

Smarter (PDF)

Visitors learn about two shape-memory materials that can be programmed to return to a previously set shape when exposed to heat. Visitors also learn about exciting new smart products that materials scientists are developing to help solve problems in engineering, medicine, and everyday life.
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Smarter Demo Clip (MP4)
Learn about revolutionary shape-memory materials, such as Nitinol, an alloy of nickel and titanium, and see its amazing shape-memory properties.

Additional Resources for Smarter

"Making Stuff" is produced in cooperation with the Materials Research Society (MRS), an international organization of nearly 16,000 materials researchers from academia, industry, and government, and a recognized leader in promoting the advancement of interdisciplinary materials research to improve the quality of life.

Major funding for “Making Stuff” is provided by the National Science Foundation.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ESI-0610307. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Additional funding for "Making Stuff" is provided by the Department of Energy.

This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Number DE-SC0004787.
Disclaimer: This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendations, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

National corporate funding for NOVA is provided by The Boeing Company. Major funding for NOVA is provided by David H. Koch, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS viewers.